This book has such a simple but genius concept. The cover starts a line that runs the entire length of the book continuing from one page to the next. Along it’s route over the illustrations it draws additional elements. For example- running through the big city illustration it fills in some of the outline shapes of the buildings, windows and doors all in one line. The illustrations are very flat and simple crisp shapes without any line. So when the black handrawn line runs through them it’s really a contrast. A child can run their finger tracing the line through the whole book. Even when you get to the end of a page, the line continues in the same spot on the next page. I can see this idea used for so many children’s items beyond books- imagine kid’s wallpaper where you could follow the line around the entire room or even bedding- the line could continue from the quilt to the pillow. The illustrator Laura Ljungkvist uses the idea on her website- having one line spell out her name. She has done other children’s books and has a new second line book- Follow the Line Through the House which also looks adorable. You can learn more about her here or pick up a copy of the book here.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I will be back on Friday with the sketchbooks and a q+a with Anders Nilsen. Yes you read right-Anders Nilsen! (amazing!)

Very cool! Saul Steinberg did a mural like this back in the fifties called “The Line” (I’ll try to see if I can dig up a photo):

“…the 33-foot-long drawing begins and ends with the image of a hand, drawing it, and unfolds in accordion fashion to cover a meandering flow of wittily rendered subjects above and below a straight line: buildings, bridges and other architecture; women; life in the sun; swimmers; an airplane, mountains and such; winding up with an ice skater forming one of Steinberg’s eloquent signature squiggles. It’s a perfect compendium of Steinbergian methodology, a free-association process where a horizon line becomes a water line that becomes a table that becomes a shelf, and objects spawn others like words in a game.”

This is brilliant! It reminds me of those Family Circus cartoons where the boy would go on a journey and the cartoon would be a map of his travels (although this in no way appears to have the same freaky undertone as Family Circus). :)